Shakespeare Theatre closes out season with 'Pericles, Prince of Tyre'

Jon Barker, as the title character, battles a knight (Jordan Laroya) in the New Jersey Shakespeare Theatre's production of "Pericles, Prince of Tyre."Jerry Dalia

Many people appreciate a change from the ordinary, so the lack of sugar plum fairies, dancing mice or grumpy Victorian misers in Shakespeare’s “Pericles, Prince of Tyre,” the holiday attraction at Madison’s Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey, is a welcome relief for holiday theater-going.

Bonnie J. Monte, the company’s artistic director, is famous for her out-of-the-ordinary but family-friendly choices for each season’s finale in the December time slot. This year, she fulfills a long-held desire to see this rarely performed, stylistically problematic Shakespeare adventure performed on the F.M. Kirby Theatre’s stage.

Shakespearean scholars agree that the Bard of Avon did not write the whole play, which is why it was not included in the first comprehensive publication of Shakespeare’s works in 1623. The first two acts were probably written by Shakespeare’s contemporary, George Wilkins, and there is a definite shift in style, language and approach in the play’s remaining three acts.

The epic story wasn’t original with Wilkins. It was based on the supposed adventures of an ancient Greek statesman from around 500 B.C., whose story was retold in 1393 by John Gower, a contemporary of Chaucer, who appears in the play as a narrator, introducing each act with a prologue.

Like Ulysses and other questing heroes of Greek legend, Pericles has an amazing, intriguing and complex life journey. Director Brian B. Crowe confirmed what he himself had always suspected when he did the play with a group of youngsters as part of the company’s educational outreach program.

“I’ve always had a curiosity and fondness for the lesser-known Shakespeare plays, and about four years ago, I used it as the summer project for our educational program,” Crowe says. “We all found it fascinating, so full of color and magic, adventure and exciting events. Behind its excitement, it’s basically about family and finding yourself and your place in the world.

“It also has a joyously happy ending, and, in the second half, there are the very real and human emotions and situations about personal relationships that Shakespeare always portrayed so well,” Crowe says.

He points out that since Shakespeare is a “prolific borrower” of good stories, it isn’t surprising that he would rise to the challenge of helping or finishing Wilkins’ play, although no one is quite sure how the script emerged with two different authors.

“I wanted to emphasize some of the mystical elements of the play, as well as its many thrilling events, and to bring out some other aspects of the religious beliefs and associations of the ancient Greeks,” Crowe says. “Gower, for example, isn’t our narrator. That job goes to three women who are priestesses of the Temple of Diana and are on stage throughout to observe the action, not just at the beginnings of each act as Gower is in the original script.”

Crowe goes from this production to a local school for a four-week Shakespeare project with its students.

The title role is a long and physically demanding one, since the play happens over several decades and takes Pericles to such locations as Antioch, Pentapolis, Ephesus, Tyre and Mytilene. The events of Pericles’ life include sea journeys and storms, a deadly riddle, tournaments and a famine, as well as a dream visit from the goddess Diana.

Nevertheless, Jon Barker is willing to rise to the challenge.

“It isn’t often that this play is done, so it’s not just another part, another job,” Barker says. “He’s very special, and I consider myself so lucky to play him and to have played Prince Mikail in ‘Tovarich’ earlier this season. Roles like that come along so seldom.

“Pericles goes through the full range of human emotions,” Barker adds. “He believes, for example, that he has lost both his wife and his only daughter, so their reunion at the end is especially joyous and overwhelming and dispels his sense of failure and frustration with life.”

Barker says he has been delighted with the enthusiastic audience response, especially in the student matinee performances.

“Pericles is a classic hero figure with a parallel to ‘The Odyssey,’ and we watch him mature from a somewhat impetuous young man to a mature leader,” Barker says. “You could call it one man’s coming of age. It all unfolds very rapidly, with numerous scenes that are not all that long, so all the richly varied characters have to achieve their emotions and communicate them more quickly. It keeps everyone in the large cast, most of whom did not know the play when we started, on their toes.”

Barker says he sees a few parallels between Pericles’ journey and the events of “A Christmas Carol.”

“Both Pericles and Scrooge have a long and emotionally demanding journey,” he says. “They each get a second chance at life after having given up, and that’s inspiring.”